A blog about autism, written by a grad student on the borders of autism.

Friday, May 29, 2009

Things I Learned Today That I Already Could Have Told You

Today, I learned several things in my practicum that I technically already knew. I know this seems like a contradiction, but it's really not.

Put another way, I got very concrete demonstrations of certain things that I already knew in the intellectual sense.

1. Nonverbal communication can be highly effective... especially if the person doing the communicating is a kid who doesn't talk, and the message is "I want you to sit on the spinny chair so that I can get on your lap and we can spin around." (I actually don't know what that particular piece of playground equipment is properly called... but the children who do talk tend to call it that.)

Nonverbal communication is also pretty good at conveying messages such as "More!" and "Faster!"... not to mention "No! I don't want to stop!"

2. On a related note, preschool children tend not to understand statements like, "I'm really, really dizzy right now and don't want to spin more."

3. I'm also a softie when it comes to kids... and find it hard to refuse their play requests no matter how dizzy I am.

4. Dry clean-only clothes do not mix well with activities that involve letting preschool children play with shaving cream.

5. Dry clean-only clothes also do not mix well with sudden rainstorms.